5 Rock Bands That Don’t Need Their Own Guitar Hero Game

Written by NickSmith

Last summer Guitar Hero: Aerosmith became the first in the series of Guitar Hero games to be primarily devoted to just one band. Guitar Hero: Metallica became the second just a few short weeks ago. The trend is not likely to slow down considering Aerosmith reportedly has made more money from the game than any one of their albums and there are still many iconic bands looking to capitalize on the success of video games in a struggling music industry.

Rock Band is even getting into the action in September with The Beatles: Rock Band. There are very few bands that have had the success of The Beatles and now the bar for artist based games has been raised even higher.

The three bands above have sold over 100 million albums each, with The Beatles topping the 1 billion sold mark. Other similarities between them are that they have many hit songs, recognizable band members, and have long lasting legacies.

There are several other bands that may or may not meet the criteria above that seemingly could be a nice fit for future games. We have selected five of those rock bands that we do not feel need their own game. This list could have easily been filled with one-hit-wonders or bands that have very little business being in any game, let alone their own.

5. Van Halen

Van Halen is one of the most successful rock bands ever. They have sold over 80 million albums and lead the genre in the 1980’s with the most top 100 songs and are the band with the most #1 mainstream rock hits. Where this band is a bad fit for the game is everything that comes along with the music. These guys have had multiple lineup changes featuring David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar, and others as the lead singer. They may be just as well known for brown M&M’s, Cabo Wabo, rehab, and not showing up their Hall of Fame induction. This is one game where the music would be right, but the “experience” would probably do no justice to the actual story of the band.

4. U2

U2 has more Grammy’s than any other artist ever and are on most lists of the greatest bands of all time. They have tons of top selling albums and high grossing tours. Bono is one of the most recognizable people in the world and The Edge gets his name thrown in some discussions of great guitar players. So why no U2? When it was rumored awhile back that there would be a U2 Guitar Hero game coming, one of the biggest beefs was that they didn’t “rock hard enough”. Others claimed they already had their fill of Bono. In this particular situation I think this game would be a perfect fit for their fans, who enjoy the whole “U2 experience”, and may not have as much interest to many others. DLC packs of their music would probably be enough for them.

3. Nickelback

Nickelback has not been around that long when compared to the other bands on this list or already with games of their own. Since 1996 they have released six studio albums which have collectively sold millions. Their album “All the Right Reasons” stayed on the Billboard Top 30 for over 2 years and featured 5 Top 20 singles. One of the things they have going against them is that there are many people that strongly dislike them. People attending one of their shows even went as far as to throw rocks at Chad Kroeger and co. on stage. Their music is played on the radio daily and that too plays against them as many lash out about being tired of hearing it and having it “the same”.

2. Coldplay

Coldplay is a band that continues to sell but much like Nickelback, catches a ton of negative hype along with their success. Each of their albums has been successful commercially and for the most part critically, winning over 40 awards. They were featured in a major iPod campaign, their lead singer Chris Martin married Gwyneth Paltrow, and they were known as being a charitable group. They are big enough to warrant their own video game and it may sell as the others have, but do we want or need it? When they announced that “Violet Hill” from Viva La Vida would be available as DLC for Guitar Hero III, there was backlash including this line from Kotaku, “It wasn’t enough to kill Guitar Hero, you now gotta whizz on its freshly-covered grave?” This is a band that many people love, but rock fans tend to hate… especially Joe Satriani fans.

1. Creed

There are very strong signs that Creed is set to make a comeback this summer. It will be interesting to see how they are received this time around. Much like Coldplay they sold millions of albums but still spark as much negative coverage as positive. People love to hate Creed. It may be because of the confusing relationship to Christian rock. It may be because their lead singer Scott Stapp was convinced that his band wanted him to commit suicide to recreate the attention success Nirvana received after Kurt Cobain killed himself. Or it may just be the way they carried themselves on stage. Regardless, this is a band that had commercial success with their album sales, their touring, and having their music featured everywhere, most notably in a partnership with WWE. Part of the problem with a game devoted to Creed would be what other bands would be featured in the game? Alter Bridge and what else?

Our picks are five well known bands that may have enough commercial appeal to market a product. They feature pompous band members, bouts with rehab, suicide attempts, lawsuits, and wrecked tours just like most great “rock bands”. Yet all of that put together still is not enough for us.

Anyone else agree with our picks? Who would be more deserving? Were we too hard on your favorite band? Let us know here or on Twitter.